Ethiopia has lifted a five-month suspension of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s aid work after it cleared the organisation of allegations of spreading “misinformation”. The government ordered the NRC, along with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to stop work for three months in July, including operations in the Tigray conflict zone. Both organisations were ordered to stop their humanitarian work in July but while MSF’s suspension was lifted in October, the NRC’s was extended. “It is heart-breaking that we were unable to reach our target of serving more than half a million in need across Ethiopia in 2021,” Jan Egeland, NRC secretary general, said in a statement. NRC had been providing food, clean water, shelter, education, and legal help to 25,000 people when it was ordered to suspend its operations. At the time, the UN called the bans “dangerous” and said Ethiopia needed evidence to back up its claims that the aid groups were spreading misinformation.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN